Map apps, CIOs and robots: the NY Tech Meetup

The NY Tech Meetup group meets on the first Tuesday of every month, as the New York tech community gathers to see short (5-minutes) demos of cool stuff their peers are working on. It also happens to be Internet Week here in New York, which may explain why last night's meetup was, by all accounts, above average.

Since Senator Malcolm Smith took the helm of the NY State Senate as Majority Leader early this year, they've made impressive strides in redesigning their website to make information more transparent to the public, and accessible in an intuitive way. There's even YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook integration! Ironically, it looks like the Office of the Chief Information Officer, which did the specs for NYSenate.gov, could use some website work themselves.

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These guys debuted at NY Tech two years ago, so it's not really new, but they demo'd their iPhone app, which looks just about as awesome as their Java version. Not only is it a 3D rendering of New York City (other locations are on their way), but it pulls data from places like Yelp, Google Maps, and others to give rich location-based information on popular and upcoming bars, restaurants, stores, etc.